With the recent critical success of her latest novel, The Core of the Sun (Auringon ydin, Teos September 2013), award-winning Johanna Sinisalo has further solidified her status as one of Finland’s most acclaimed authors. Sinisalo has been the recipient of 2000’s Finlandia Prize, the most prestigious Finnish literary award, and the James Tiptree, Jr. Award in 2004. Her works have been translated into 19 languages.

The Core of the Sun depicts a dystopian version of Finland called the Finnish Eusistocratic Republic. Here sex has been turned into a commodity, and women have been bred into two subspecies based on their ability to provide pleasure and bear children.

”Sinisalo is responsible for introducing a new boundary-breaking subgenre known as ‘Finnish weird’ to literature in Finland. In her novels, fantasy serves as the catalyst for laying bare the dark sides of human nature and power structures,” the review continues. Read the full review here.

More praise for The Core of the Sun:

“Sinisalo squeezes copious humor out of the Finnish Eusistocratic Republic’s social overreach; however, the laughter frequently dies in your throat when you realize how closely even the most ridiculous aspects of this alternative world hew to present-day reality.”

-Finnish science fiction magazine Tähtivaeltaja (“Star Traveller”)

”The Core of the Sun is Johanna Sinisalo’s best novel since the Finlandia Prize-winning Not Before Sundown (Ennen päivänlaskua ei voi, Tammi 2000)….it deals with themes similar to those in Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale (1985).”

Johanna Sinisalo (b. 1958) is one of Finland’s most successful and internationally acclaimed authors. Praised by readers and critics alike, she has won several literary prizes, among them the Finlandia Prize in 2000 and the James Tiptree, Jr. Award in 2004. Johanna Sinisalo has been nominated for the Prix Escapades 2012, the Tähtivaeltaja (“Star Traveller”) award in 2014 and the Nebula Award in 2008. Her works have been translated into 19 languages.